The Dell 27 Monitor (P2719H) is a capable, moderate-price big-screen LCD monitor, meant for business use. It delivers good ergonomics and plenty of ports, but mediocre color accuracy.

The $329.99 Dell 27 Monitor (P2719H) is a capable, moderately priced business display. Its ergonomically friendly stand lets you adjust the panel for maximum comfort. Connectivity abounds; you get a plethora of ports in the DisplayPort, HDMI, USB, and VGA families. This monitor's native resolution is on the low side for its screen size, and its color accuracy is middling, but it should be fine for general office use. In short, this is a solid but unspectacular pick for office work on a roomy screen.

A Sturdy, Ergonomic Stand

The P2419H's panel is housed in a matte-black frame affixed to a stand set in a rectangular base. While the lower bezel is wide (0.8 inch), the top and side bezels are very thin (0.23 inch). The stand supports height, tilt, swivel, and pivot control. With the stand in place, the P2719H is reasonably compact for its screen size, measuring 15.5 by 24 by 7.3 inches (HWD), and it weighs 19.9 pounds. The stand has a small footprint (9.5 by 7.5 inches), and it feels sturdy enough. You can thread cables through the circular hole in the stand's column to keep them in check.

The panel has a rated brightness of 300 cd/m2 (nits), although it came in at only 169 nits when I tested it using a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, a Klein K10-A colorimeter, and SpectraCal CalMAN 5 software. Its rated contrast is 1,000:1, typical of an in-plane switching (IPS) monitor.

Like its smaller sibling, the Dell P2419H, the P2719H has a 1080p (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) native resolution. However, while 1080p is still a typical resolution for 24-inch business monitors, most 27-inch panels—including the Editors' Choice ViewSonic VP2768—have graduated to a native resolution of WQHD (2,560 by 1,440 pixels). That said, 1080p should be more than adequate for business use with a 27-inch monitor, unless your job entails photo editing, working with intricate graphics or video, or dealing with genuinely gigantic spreadsheets. If you don't need the higher resolution, there's no sense in paying extra for it.

Typical gray-to-gray pixel response is 8 milliseconds, though it can be as fast as 5 milliseconds. Input lag—as measured with a Leo Bodnar Lag Tester—came in at a very good 10.1 milliseconds, just a tad longer than the BenQ SW2700PT, which remains our leader with a 9.5-millisecond input lag. Although the P2719H is not designed to be a gaming monitor, it ran Rise of the Tomb Raider and its benchmark sequence with a minimum of artifacts. However, contrast was poor throughout the benchmark sequence, and colors lacked vibrancy.

The Ins, the Outs, and the Controls

The P2719H has an abundance of ports: two HDMI 1.4 ports, one DisplayPort 1.2 connector, a VGA port, and four USB ports, two of them USB 2.0 and the other two USB 3.0. The USB 3.0 ports are conveniently side-facing, while the other ports are splayed across the monitor's back, facing down. Fortunately, the monitor is sturdy enough that it's easy to turn on its side, or even upside-down, to plug things in. (A version of the monitor due out in a few months, the P2719HC, will add USB-C support for about $50 extra.)

At the right-hand edge of the bottom bezel are five tiny control buttons. The rightmost and largest of the five is an on/off button, while the others help you navigate the monitor's onscreen display (OSD) menu system. The main menu lets you control functions such as brightness and contrast (using sliders controlled by arrow buttons), input source, color, and aspect ratio. Another menu lets you access preset modes, including Standard, Comfort View, Movie, Game, Warm, Cool, and Custom Color. The last allows you to set your own red, blue, and green levels with sliders.

Dell covers the P2719H with a three-year warranty.

Performance Testing

Color accuracy out of the box is so-so, as shown on the chromaticity chart below. I tested the panel in Standard mode, and as you can see, some of my color measurements (represented by the colored dots) are well aligned with their ideal CIE coordinates (represented by the boxes), while others are a bit off. When viewing movies in Movie mode, reds and blues tended to look undersaturated. Colors in photos looked decent.

The monitor's viewing angles, both from the side and above, were wide, typical of an IPS panel, with no discernible dimming or color shift, even at extreme off-center angles.

I measured the P2719H's power consumption at 23 watts in Standard color mode, a typical reading for its screen size. That's a tad more efficient than the Dell 27 Ultrathin Monitor (S2719DM), which consumed 25 watts in its Standard preset mode. The ViewSonic VP2768's power consumption varied widely between modes: 28 watts in Standard ECO mode, 23 watts in Optimize mode, and 18 watts in Conserve mode.

A Big, Basic Full HD Panel

Many of today's business monitors come with nifty features such as a high native resolution and precise color-calibration settings. For certain kinds of work, extras like these are desirable, but they boost a monitor's price, sometimes by a bunch. The Dell 27 Monitor (P2719H) has a more modest feature set, with a price to match. It still provides a highly adjustable stand (tweakable in four dimensions), as well as a good selection of ports.

Graphics professionals should look to a model like our Editors' Choice ViewSonic VP2768, with its stellar color and grayscale accuracy, and its color-correction features. Cash-strapped offices, or those aiming to pay for nothing more than they actually need, should consider the Dell 27 Monitor (P2719H) for its assortment of ports, its ergonomically gifted stand, and overall solid performance at a moderate price.

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About the Author

As Analyst for printers, scanners, and projectors, Tony Hoffman tests and reviews these products and provides news coverage for these categories. Tony has worked at PC Magazine since 2004, first as a Staff Editor, then as Reviews Editor, and more recently as Managing Editor for the printers, scanners, and projectors team.
In addition to editing, T... See Full Bio

Dell 27 Monitor (P2719H)

Dell 27 Monitor (P2719H)

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